The great lie; the awful myth that Europeans began the slave trade in West Africa

Guilt for the slave trade in West Africa is routinely and erroneously laid at the door of Europeans. Centuries later, white people in Europe and America are urged to apologise and make reparation for the supposed sins of their distant ancestors. The whole affair is founded upon a misunderstanding of African history. Defrémery, C.; Sanguinetti, B. R. (Editors) (1858), Voyages d Ibn Batoutah (Volume 4) (in French and Arabic), Paris: Société Asiatic. Levtzion, Nehemia; Hopkins, John F. P. (Editors) (2000) Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West Africa, New York: Marcus Weiner Press. Meredith, Martin (2014) The Fortunes of Africa, New York: PublicAffairs. Smith, Abdullahi (1972) History of West Africa, New York: Columbia University Press.